Fitzgerald: The mobile city hall's slow roll

Thursday

May 10, 2018 at 6:50 PMMay 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM

Michael Fitzgerald Record columnist @Stocktonopolis

Whatever happened to the City of Stockton’s mobile city hall?

More than a year ago, the council approved spending $100,000 on a customized vehicle loaded with electronics and information. This rig would sally forth from the cube farms of City Hall and bring government to the people.

“It’ll be cool,” city spokesperson Connie Cochran said. She added, however, “I wished it could move along a lot faster as well.”

The vehicle is a Ford F550 box van — like a UPS truck, but not brown, and with a taco truck-type window on the side, but no tacos, unfortunately, and with on-board electronics: computers, Wi-Fi, and a generator, crewed by two city workers.

It was supposed to roll out months ago. What’s the holdup?

“It had to be custom built,” by some outfit in Indiana, Cochran said. “It isn’t something you get off the shelf.”

Indiana took longer than anticipated. The van was not delivered until January. It now is at the city’s corporation yard. Techies are wiring it for routers, wide-screen TVs, sound, etc. That, too, has taken longer than foreseen.

This, that, the other. The months drag on.

Cochran remains bubbly. “I’m jazzed about it. I can see a lot of application for getting closer to the community, meeting people, providing services,” she said.

With greater efficiency. “It’s so much better than schlepping your tables and chairs,” Cochran said, “and reserving rooms at schools, and things like that.”

Implicit in the idea of the mobile city hall is reaching the underserved.

“We want to be able to go out to other parts of the community that are far-flung and be able to bring services to people who might not be able to get to City Hall easily,” said John Alita, director of the Community Services Department. “Let people pay tickets, bills, apply for library cards. Register for sports.”

Or apply for city jobs. That might be most welcome.

The van could augment public meetings at community centers or be the nucleus of a neighborhood meeting. It could park at events such as Earth Day. It could dispense valuable information near the scene of major catastrophes.

Or it could set up shop and draw no interest whatsoever. Not being Nostradamus, I cannot predict.

Another goal is befriending the leery citizen. One who thinks City Hall is aloof. “The Mobile City Hall will address the City Council strategic priority of improved image and public relations,” a 2017 staff report said.

As for the budget, the van project has exceeded the $100,000 allocation. The van cost $85,776. The technology, $11,000. And the city hired a PR firm, Port City Marketing, for up to $42,000 to design the van’s wrap and publicize the roll-out.

That’s $138,776. And there are significant ancillary costs.

Not Bay Bridge-level cost overruns. Still, will a project behind schedule and over budget improve City Hall’s image? Or cement it?

Lenz hopes it still works out: “I really do hope what the city had told us they hoped it did is take the city hall out to different neighborhoods. So they feel like they’re closer to city hall.”

Original plans called for buying a trailer, officials explained. But several who visited Rancho Cucamonga to study its trailer found the 30-foot rig requires a tractor-type truck to pull it and a specially licensed driver. At additional staff time and expense.

“I think what was not considered at the time is that’s what it costs to buy a trailer,” Alita said. “What it cost to buy a truck to pull a trailer is another cost.”

Remarkable that this detail escaped the attention of the authors of the staff report. Anyway, Stockton switched to a van. Costs more up front but reduces operating costs.

The wrap (the vinyl vehicle covering, displaying images or advertizing) will bear the city’s logo. The body color will be blue, Cochran said.

“Blue is the world’s favorite color,” she said. “You can google that.”

Government people love new toys. Some work well. Others go on the shelf at great cost (or, in this case, are resold and become a food truck selling shawarma).

We’ll see — whenever they roll out the mobile city hall.

“Once we get it going we think it will be well worth the wait,” Cochran said. “I don’t have a specific date for you right now.”

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog and on Twitter @Stocktonopolis.

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